


Prince of Ships

by themummersfolly



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Coming of Age, Dark Elves, Knowhere (Marvel), braids are important, good old-fashioned ass-kicking, shameless techno-babble, so are knives, strategy is an art, the good old ship is held together with twine and good intentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 14,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25252675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themummersfolly/pseuds/themummersfolly
Summary: “I thought you were sent with us to pass your trials. You know, earn your braids, become an adult.” A young half-elf struggles to find his place in the world; the Dark Elves struggle to survive. A sequel to Tifasledhoh. Takes place immediately after the events of Guardians of the Galaxy.





	1. Chapter 1

The blade entered the atmosphere on the planet’s night side, trusting the darkness to shield them from watchers. They had cause for concern; rumors were once again circulating as to their continued existence.  


“Apologies, sir – we’ll take the helm from here.”  


Silas Walker, Prince-in-exile of Harudheen and cousin to Khaleen Vörth, sighed and stepped back, allowing a comrade to take his place in the pilot’s station.  


“Another week and I’d have been certified.” He made his way to the passenger compartment and took up a position. “I mean, this couldn’t have waited a week?”  


“No.” Jazal was a senior machinist, Silas’s friend and mentor. “The Ark needs repairs. Khaleen and the Commander are right, you’ll have to take your exam when we get back. Put your mask on.” He tossed it across the compartment. “Make all the faces you want, as long as I don’t have to see them.”  


Silas rolled his eyes one last time before popping his mask into place. “I wouldn’t feel so bad if they hadn’t sprung this on us last minute.”  


“We all knew we would need replacement parts. We’ve scavenged on Harudheen before, we know the materials are there.”  


“Just seems kind of scattershot, that’s all.”  


Jazal glanced at him. The blank lenses of his mask hid his expression. “Welcome to the life of the geilää. Chaos is not just your companion, she’s your lover. If you don’t like it, maybe you should have become a florist.”  


Silas snorted, laughing, and braced as they hit a wave of turbulence. There was no point, he had learned, in getting upset at the way things were, especially when you could make a wry joke out of it. That, too, was the life of a warrior on the last Ark of Harudheen.  


The little drop ship came to rest in a band of ruins that marked an ancient battlefield. Hardy construction meant that the shattered spars of dead ships still loomed over them even after all these millennia: dangerous, certainly, and a painful reminder to the men who remembered the long-ago battle, but most importantly, cover while they prepared their next move.  


“Thorium cores, hydralizine, quantum fibers…” Jazal read off their shopping list.  


“The fibers will be the hardest to get,” Diinesh put in. “They never last long.”  


Silas scrolled through his own reader, going over the mission data again. “You guys found all that here before?”  


“The ship was in better condition last time,” Jazal admitted. “We didn’t need most of this stuff.”  


Silas edged into the cockpit and glanced at the scene of destruction on the HUD.  


“Hmm.” He kept scrolling through his reader. “It says there was a shipyard not too far from here.”  


Jazal peered over his shoulder. “Jajinlaari. Lost in the initial attack, but presumed to be mostly intact. We never got the chance to investigate it.”  


“Mostly intact. What does that mean?”  


Jazal tapped a rough map, enlarging it on the screen. “It was mostly underground to start with. Based on the lay of the land, the blast wave would probably have collapsed these cliffs onto the facility, destroying some of the ships, but preserving the ones further in. At least, that’s the theory,” he added. “We never checked.”  


“Wanna check now?” Silas flicked off the reader. “What kinda ships we talking about?”  


“One or two Arks, maybe. Mostly smaller ships – blade class, some triremes…”  


“Anything compatible with our systems?”  


“Should be.”  


“Well,” Silas keyed the coordinates into the computer. “Let’s rock and roll, then.”

\-------

“The trick is to open an access-way without collapsing the whole structure on us.” Jazal stood with his hands on his hips, staring out over the dusty depression before them. Outlined by a semicircle of crumbling cliffs, it was large enough to hold a city, though Silas found it hard to believe there had ever been anything here. He glanced at his reader again.  


“You sure we’re in the right place?”  


“This place gets a lot of dust storms,” Goheen offered. “It’s probably all been filled in by now.”  


“Well, I suppose we start with the obvious.” Jazal grabbed a detector and headed for the nearest outcropping. The others followed suit, fanning out and looking for a possible entry point. Silas hung back.  


“There’s got to be a better way to do this. Somebody’s going to notice if we stay out in the open very long.”  


“The big scanners on the Ark would help right now,” Diinesh agreed.  


“What if we had something better?” Silas was thinking out loud. He had always had an affinity for the mechanical; it just seemed to speak to him, in a way. He shut his eyes and thought of ships: of their own little Harrow, and of the Ark with its massive engines; and he thought of cities, with oil and water and electricity coursing through their veins, and of the roads that linked them…  


He was half-aware that he had raised his hand in front of him, as if feeling his way. There it was, like the layout of a familiar room: networks of roads, broken by the cataclysm, and further on tunnels, opening into vast chambers. And in those chambers, lying like sleeping dragons –  


The ships, the SHIPS! That was what they needed. Show me the way! He stretched out, feeling his way. There, under the dust, where the ruins of a watch tower lay across a broken gate, they could get in there –  


Stone cracked and rumbled, falling aside. There were yells and curses, and feet running towards him. Silas opened his eyes, and the feeling of having his shoulder set against a beam vanished.  


“It’s caving in! Sir –” Jazal stopped short, staring at him, then turned to look at the dust cloud rising from the near side of the valley.  


“Yo, what – whoah!” Jazal and Diinesh caught him as he reeled.  


“Did you do that, sir?”  


“House of Kitharn indeed! A strong enchanter!”  


Silas gulped air and prayed he wouldn’t throw up in his mask. “Guys, I found a way in!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jajinlaari: pronounced "Yai-yin-lahr-ee."


	2. Chapter 2

“You weren’t kidding about this place being intact. There’s like twenty ships in there that nobody’s touched in five thousand years!” Silas paused to catch his breath. “I got Diinesh and Goheen doing an inventory now.”

Jazal stood in the rocks at the entrance to the complex. “Did you tell them to stay together?”

“Yeah, man. I seen enough horror movies to know not to split up in a place like this.” Ordinarily, that would have been the start of a conversation about Midgardian theater. But Jazal didn’t respond. He was staring at the cliffs.

“What’s up?” Silas moved so he could follow Jazal’s line of sight. “What do you see?”

“There used to be trees at the top of those cliffs.” He pointed. “They were taller, then. And flowers grew all along the slopes. I used to live near here,” he added. “My family was from the plains, further east, but I grew up here.” 

Silas stared around the dusty basin. It was hard to believe anyone had lived here.

“Hey Jaz? How come we didn’t find anybody down there? I mean, you’d think it being underground and all, somebody would have made it.”

Jazal scratched under his braids. “The attack set the atmosphere on fire. Even if someone had escaped the blast, there would have been nothing left to breathe. Even now, the air’s still not safe.” He turned. “I’m going to check on the men.” 

Silas watched him clamber back down, white braids disappearing into the shadows. Outside, the wind had kicked up and was blowing gouts of sand over the tops of the cliffs. He edged out as far as he dared. This was someone’s home, he thought, and again: Someone used to live here. My grandmother used to live here. If it weren’t for his survival suit, the cold would have been unbearable. The only sounds were the clatter of rocks and the wail of incoming bad weather; there weren’t even crickets. 

In Shivaisith, Harudheen meant home – no, The Home, the cradle of its own peculiar civilization. There had been millions of people here, and now there were only a hundred and three, most of them back on the Ark. Silas tried to imagine the flowers, and children playing – what did Dark Elvish children look like? 

Like you, he realized. How do you hate someone enough to do this? War is one thing – but how do you willingly make a whole group of people just not exist anymore? Genocide was the word they used on Earth – his birthplace, if not his home. He could only imagine the loneliness Jazal and the others felt coming back to their world.

A cloud was growing off to the east, beyond the cliffs. Where there’s weather, there’s air. And where there’s air – well, maybe something can live. He popped his mask off, took an experimental breath. The air tasted like diesel fumes. He choked and put the mask back on.

This wasn’t a home anymore, it was a graveyard. Silas climbed back down towards the tunnels, grateful that the only ruins he’d seen were the military ones.

\-------

The sun never rose or set on Harudheen. Its star, tiny Reev, was too small to support life at any great distance, and its one habitable planet orbited so close that it was tidally locked. East and West were fixed points, wracked by storms and locked by ice; North and South formed an endless longitudinal loop. In the once-inhabited equatorial zone, the shadows never moved.

An outsider might feel that time stood still here; but to the Dark Elves, it was time to eat. They had brought ration bars from the Ark, and sat around the entrance to a side tunnel, well into the complex, masks off and tools set aside.

Silas frowned over the notes he had drawn in the dust. “So – from what you guys tell me – we can pull enough materials from here to fix up the Heedra, and still have enough to get –” He counted on his fingers. “– To get maybe five of these blade ships patched up, too.”

“We might even be able to get the engines started, temporarily,” Blakavar offered. Jazal shook his head.

“We can get all the plating and conduits from here, but we won’t find the more volatile components. Flux medium and coolant don’t last in planetside conditions.”

Silas stared again at his drawing. He sighed. “I dunno. Any suggestions?”

Blakavar leaned on his knees. “We could probably make the coolant.”

“Not in the volumes we need,” said Goheen. “Not without blowing ourselves up.”

No one spoke for a moment. Blakavar looked around. “Well… maybe we can find it somewhere else.”

Goheen and Diinesh stared at him. 

“The Ark uses a very specific kind of coolant,” Jazal pointed out. “We can’t just melt down a comet and use that.”

“But we might be able to buy it, or something close enough that we can modify it. That, and the rest of what we need.” Blakavar glanced at Silas.

“Or we could just go straight to Asgard and skip the middle steps,” Diinesh said. “We show ourselves and they’re not going to need a reason to kill us.”

“Even if we could find a place that sold what we need, what would we use as money?” Silas frowned. There were too many parts to this problem. “Is there a market for Ark plating?”

Jazal crossed and uncrossed his feet, thinking. 

“Well,” Blakavar shrugged. “It was a dumb idea anyway.”

No one argued, but no one agreed, either. Silas’s mind spun. We need specialized materials. We need to find a dealer. We need something to exchange. If he could solve each of those riddles, he could solve the overall question. Jazal, still fidgeting, seemed to be mulling over the same matter.

\-------

With the initial inventory done, it would be a matter of days to pry loose what they needed and stow it on the Harrow. Silas and Jazal volunteered to haul the first load back, using the storm front as cover. 

“Do you think you’d recognize the stuff we need if you saw it?” Silas leaned into his tow cable. Even through his gloves, it bit into his hand. The makeshift sled bounced over a rock. “Like, if you saw hydralizine –”

“Wouldn’t buy straight hydralizine, anyway,” Jazal puffed. “Goes off too easy. Get the ingredients, mix what you need.”

“But you’d know what to get?”

“Yes.”

“What about the rest?”

“Flux medium, coolant – yeah, think so. Quantum fibers – the Asgardians were using quantum fibers last time. Stole the tech from us. Should be able to find something – huff – comparable.” They were almost there. Jazal strained at his cable, putting in one last burst of effort to bring their cargo to the gang way.

The hatch opened on command, and they stumbled in out of the wind, pulling off their masks. Jazal leaned against a bulkhead.

“You’re not seriously thinking about trying to go to market for this stuff?”

“It’s risky, but there’s a lot we can get away with – within, you know, certain parameters.”

They lifted the heavy plating segments from the sled, stacking and securing them in the hold.

“Even if we can find what we need, who’s going to sell to us?” Jazal set his end down a little harder than necessary and winced. “The whole universe wants us dead.”

“Asgard wants us dead, but Asgard isn’t the whole universe. There are lots of people out there who are trying to lay low. They’ll keep quiet rather than blow their own cover.”

Jazal stared at him. “You mean like criminals?”

“Um, well… not exactly. But shady people.”

“Shady.”

“You know – people who are trying to not be noticed.”

“And you call them ‘shady’ on Midgard.”

“Well, I guess it doesn’t translate very well…”

“Around here, we used to call them trouble.”

They strapped the last deck plate in place. Jazal stretched.

“I’m going to load up some more supplies; we could use more water. You should probably check the read-outs.”

Silas climbed to the cockpit and woke up the computer. Solar and atmospheric monitors showed no change; no one else had approached the planet since they had arrived.

Who am I kidding, we can’t even trade on the black market. Price on our heads is way too high. He pulled up a star map and scrolled through. It was one of the new ones they’d received from the Grey Elves. Is there actually a price on our heads? That’d be kind of cool, in a way. The map had a feature that showed trade routes, along with notes on each port. Silas tried to remember the sort of people his cousins had dealt with in their never-ending quest to survive in New York. Leena could figure this out. Wasn’t a gangbanger around she couldn’t handle.

He traced a route past Harudheen out to the edge of the map and read the note at the end of it. Mining colony, trading outpost… politically unaffiliated. Rare organic materials, rough crowd. He gnawed his lip. Leena would call it a bad idea. And then probably do it anyway, a week later.

“Even if we found a dealer – sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” Jazal held out his hands. Silas leaned on the console, clutching at his heart.

“Geez, man!”

“Sorry. Even if we found a dealer, it’s not like we have anything valuable to sell.”

“If there’s a bounty on us, we could turn somebody in and then bust ‘em out after we get the money. I think I saw them do that in a movie, once.”

Jazal tried to disguise his laugh as a snort. “You’ll have to show me this movie someday. What’s that?” He pointed to the map.

“Oh, some trade chart or something. Figured it couldn’t hurt to look at it. To be honest, I don’t even remember which one it was. The movie, I mean.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Down here, sir, I’ve got them!” Blakavar indicated the conduit coils Silas carried looped over his shoulder. Silas braced himself against the hull of the wrecked bladeship and swung the coil out.

“Look out below!”

Blakavar caught it deftly. Hands free, Silas navigated his way back to the ground and dusted himself off.

“You don’t have to ‘sir’ me, man.”

“Sorry, sir?”

“C’mon, dude!” Silas laughed. Blakavar lifted his mask, confused. He was taller than Silas, and looked only a year or two older – and in pure-blooded elvish years, he was. “Chill. You’re dating my sister, you don’t have to be formal with me.”

“I don’t want to be found… presumptuous.” 

“Nah. You’re good.”

Blakavar dragged the conduit over and threw it on the pile for their next trip. “The vörth thinks I’m scheming for better braids. She doesn’t approve of me calling on Violeth.”

“You know, you’re going to have to learn to say her name right.”

Blakavar fidgeted. “She doesn’t mind,” he said sheepishly.

“Oh geez.” Silas climbed back up the wreck towards where he had found the conduit. Blakavar followed. “For the record, Khaleen doesn’t disapprove of you. If Vi’s happy, she’s happy.”

“She sent me here to keep me away from Violeth.”

Immersed in freeing the loops of conduit, Silas only managed a snort. “Look,” he finally said, standing up and stretching his back. “If anything, she’s uncomfortable with how young Vi is. She doesn’t want you to move to fast. Not with her being a minor and all.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s a Midgardian thing. By their standards, Vi’s still a kid. So am I, really.”

“You work like adults, you fight like adults – I still don’t understand”

“Neither do I. But Leena grew up on Midgard, so to her, we’re not adults until we’re eighteen.”

“You’re –” Blakavar frowned. “You’re still two years away from that.”

“Yup.” Silas tugged on the end of a cable to loosen it. It gave way and he nearly toppled over. Blakavar caught him by the arm.

“I thought you were sent with us to pass your trials. You know, earn your braids, become an adult.”

“Dude, I don’t have enough hair to braid.” Silas climbed out onto the hull plating and began looping the conduit into a coil. “You know, this would be easier if we just threw it down.”

They each lifted a side of the coil of conduits. “On three. One –”

“Look out!” Diinesh yelled. Jazal was marching right towards where the coil would land. Silas and Blakavar staggered and dropped it. Jazal didn’t even look up.

“Well look who’s on a mission from God,” Silas muttered, while Diinesh threw his hands up in exasperation. Checking to make sure it was safe, they threw the coil off and slid down the hull after it. 

“Where’s he going?”

“Who knows.” Diinesh shook his head. Silas and Blakavar glanced at each other and took off, following Jazal between the rows of ships. He finally stopped towards the back of the complex, where a series of doors showed where rooms had been carved into the rock.

“Dude, wait up! Where are we going?”

Jazal stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the crumbling stone as if it was a puzzle. “This was a military depot. Somewhere in here there should be a treasury.”

“A treasury?”

“Salt and gold, to pay the soldiers.” He picked a smaller door off to one side and walked through. The younger men tagged after him.

“I’ve never been paid.” Blakavar said the word the way an explorer might say El Dorado. Silas glanced at him.

“Neither has anyone else,” he realized. “Hey Jazal, why hasn’t anybody been paid?”

“I suppose at some point we stopped caring.” The door opened onto a complex of rooms. Jazal made his way from one to another, looking around in the gloom. “I mean, what were we going to do, desert Malekith?” He stopped in what appeared to be the farthest-back chamber. Part of the back wall had collapsed, but it hadn’t buried the three large chests that lay to one side. He knelt at one, fiddling with the mechanism and cursing. “Lad, come here and help me with this. Talk to it or whatever it is you do.”

Silas knelt next to him. He couldn’t even see what Jazal had been manipulating. “What do I do with it?”

“Do like you did with the entrance to this place. Go on.”

Silas looked from Jazal back to the chest. He wasn’t even sure what he had done at the entrance, let alone how to duplicate it. Jazal and Blakavar were staring at him. His ears began to prickle.

“What did you find?” Diinesh and Goheen had joined them. Great, now everyone can stare at me. 

“Are those pay coffers?” Goheen pushed past Blakavar. “I’ve always wanted to do this!” Before anyone could stop him, he elbowed Silas and Jazal aside, raised his foot, and brought it down on the lock mechanism. Cra-chunk!

Diinesh put his masked face in his hand. Jazal let Goheen steady himself against his shoulder while the other man stood on one foot, nursing the other.

“Moron.”

“Worth it.”

Silas and Blakavar helped Goheen hobble back while Jazal lifted the lid. He peered under it, then laughed and threw it back. Inside were ingots of gold and bags of course, multicolored rock salt.

“There you go, boy, there’s your market money! There’s enough in there to build a second Ark!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vörth: Shivaisith for ruler or monarch


	4. Chapter 4

“What are we going to do with it all?” Blakavar watched wide-eyed as Jazal and Goheen sat in the hold of the Harrow, counting the contents of the treasury. It had taken all of them the better part of two watches to lug the heavy chests back to the drop ship. The other two contained much the same as the first, along with a fair amount of copper. It was more money than any of them had ever seen in one place.

“We’re going to spend it,” Jazal said, tallying up a stack of pressed salt tablets.

“On what?”

“I know what I’m spending mine on.” Goheen grinned.

“Not women.” Jazal stacked the salt tablets carefully back in their container.

“We could use the metals for soldering,” Diinesh offered. “It would work better than what we’ve been using. And the cooks will be glad of the salt.”

Blakavar and Goheen stared at him, horrified.

“To valuable for that,” Jazal countered. “It’s money, and we’re going to spend it.”

Diinesh narrowed his eyes. “You’re not actually thinking of trying to buy our repair goods, are you?”

Blakavar started. “Wait, I thought –”

“That’s exactly what we’re gonna do.” Silas edged forward so they could see him. “You had the right idea, Blakavar. I found a place where we can get what we need without attracting attention. It’ll take us a few days out of our way, so if we want to get back within the mission time frame, we’ll need to leave now. We’ll pull out what we need the most and bring it with; everything else, we’ll leave here and get on a later trip. That’ll leave room for the rest of the stuff on our list. Everybody cool with that plan?”

Diinesh stared at him. Goheen scooted around so he could look up without straining his neck.

“Khaleen’s not going to like this. Neither will the Commander.”

“Look, our orders were to get the stuff we need to repair the Ark. We’re not going to find half of that here. Going out there’s a risk, but if we succeed it’s gonna solve a lot of our problems.”

“He’s right,” said Jazal. “We’ll never get ahead by sitting around picking at old bones.” He looked around at the others. Diinesh sighed.

“Where our chief goes, we’ll go. Lead on, Prince Silas.”

\-------

“All secure in the hold,” Jazal called.

“All secure – let’s roll!” Silas echoed. In the cockpit, Blakavar and Diinesh brought the little ship to life. The deck plates thrummed as they lifted off.

The expected turbulence hit as they cut through the upper atmosphere. Goheen’s head lolled; he had fallen asleep almost as soon as he sat down. Jazal was, once again, uncharacteristically silent. 

Once they cleared the atmosphere, Diinesh turned the copilot’s station over to Silas and retreated to the hold. Blakavar waited until he was gone and sighed.

“I’m glad we’re leaving that place.”

“Huh?” Silas looked up from his instruments.

“Harudheen.” Blakavar adjusted their velocity and began to log in their course. “I hope to never see it again.” He glanced at Silas, clearly wondering if he had gone too far. Silas watched the receding planet in the HUD. He nodded.

“I get that.”

“I’m not like the others. I don’t remember the flowers, the hearthfires.”

“I thought you were born there.”

Blakavar shrugged. “I remember my parents… I remember playing, having lessons. But when the war started I was only a little child.” He stared at his hands. “They all sing about the Old Home and the glory that was, but… I never knew it. The Ark is my home. All I ever knew of that place was corpses and ash.”

Silas leaned on the console. “I get you, man.”

“I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s supposed to be our legacy.”

“Some legacy.”

Blakavar glanced back at him again. “Do you… do you feel a connection to it? To Harudheen?”

Silas thought about it. “I felt Jajinlaari. But that was like you feel the Harrow – like, you know…” He gestured. “Not like a connection kind of connection.”

Blakavar nodded. “I used to wonder if it was just me.” He turned back to the HUD. “I’m glad I’m not alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit where credit is due: I got several of the Dark Elf names straight from moonship. Jazal and Kitharn are taken from the fic Thickened Skin.


	5. Chapter 5

Caution made the trip longer than it should have been. The final day was spent navigating through a nebula: a tricky passage at best, and made all the more difficult by the need to remain unseen. Blakavar and Diinesh sweated bullets as they maneuvered past without disturbing the clouds of gas and dust.

As they neared their objective, Silas climbed back into the cockpit to watch the HUD.

“Any idea what we’re looking for, sir?”

“It’s some kind of mining colony on an asteroid or something.” Silas craned his neck to see the display. Jazal and Goheen crowded into the hatch behind him.

“We’ve got a pretty big mass projection up ahead.” Diinesh indicated an area on the HUD. “A lot of signal activity, too – probably communications.”

“We’ll have visual in a moment,” Blakavar said. 

“Holy mackerel – what is that?” Silas gaped. Beside him, Jazal raised his mask to get a better look.

“Severed head of a Celestial avatar,” he breathed. “One came for Harudheen once, long ago in the reign of Aashan Vörth.”

Silas glanced at him. “What happened?” 

“Hmm? An Aether-keeper named Djerduu slew it.”

As they came closer, Silas could see that the bizarre formation was inhabited. Traffic buzzed in and out of the gaping eye sockets; lights gleamed and flickered inside the decaying jaw.

“Mining. What the hell could they be mining here?” Nobody answered.

Jazal pulled up a display and began charting the main routes surrounding the skull. “Main avenues of approach are to the face and the base of the skull. How do we want to do this?”

“If we fly in cloaked, we run the risk of a collision,” Blakavar said.

“If we drop our cloaks, we run the risk of an attack,” Diinesh added.

Silas chewed his lip. “Can we access their comms?”

“I’ll try.” Diinesh turned to a panel.

“Search… search ‘Asgard.’”

“Hold on.” A moment later a display opened over the panel, showing a handful of religious icons, several old news clips, and a poorly written encyclopedia entry.

“Ok, search ‘Earth.’”

Only two results this time, both from an outdated navigation journal. Diinesh scowled at the screen.

“This search engine of theirs is garbage.”

“What exactly are you looking for?” Jazal asked.

“Evidence that they know what we are. Evidence that they can ID us.” Silas crossed his arms, staring at the screen. Jazal stepped forward.

“Diinesh, search ‘svartalfr.’”

Silas blinked. “What?”

“’Svartalfr.’ It’s what the Asgardians call us.”

Five results this time, all referring to the same Asgardian textbook. At Jazal’s direction, Diinesh opened each one and scanned through it. The descriptions were vague, and the illustrations had clearly been based off the descriptions.

“Ok, no danger there,” Silas said. “Nobody here’s gonna recognize us. Blakavar, decloak us.” 

“And contact port authority,” Jazal added.

“Uhh… there doesn’t seem to be a port authority.” Diinesh was still fiddling with the search engine.  
“What? Well, who runs this place?”

“There’s the Tivan Group…”

“And they manage the port?”

“I guess… Here’s a list of notices from them… It all looks pretty loose to me.”

“Huh.” Jazal peered over Diinesh’s shoulder. “What a way to run a place.”

Silas looked at the eerie shape in the HUD. “So are we cool to go in there or what?”

“There doesn’t seem to be any procedure to request a berth,” said Jazal. “Our best bet may be to follow the other ships and see what they do.”

“Ok, then. Blakavar, down cloak and take us in. We’ll look for a parking spot and hope for the best.”

\-----

It was bright on the docks, painfully bright. Silas scrubbed at his eyes; the word “migraine” kept popping into his mind for some reason.

“Business or pleasure?” The seedy-looking man greeted them as they disembarked, identifying himself as the dockmaster. He leered at Silas over a tablet.

“Business.”

The dockmaster entered it into his tablet. “Excellent! Now about the docking fee –”

He held out a scabby hand. Before Silas could respond, Jazal pushed past and slapped something into the man’s palm. 

“There’s for the docking fee.” He slapped a second item atop the first with a dull chink. “And there’s to keep your mouth shut.”

The dockmaster stared at his hand. Jazal had paid him with two gold bars from the pay chest.

He bowed and shuffled off. Silas turned to the rest of the team, hanging back in the shadow of the hatch.

“Damn waste of money,” Diinesh muttered. “Should have shot the bastard and saved ourselves the trouble.”

“Would have been noticed.” Jazal climbed the gangway and leaned on the hatch supports. Silas followed him.

“We need to leave someone with the Harrow when we go out there.” He was trying to remember how Khaleen had done things in New York. It wasn’t really applicable here. “Jaz, you got the list?”

“Mm-hmm.” Jazal raised a tablet. “Goheen, Blakavar, stay here. Keep the engines warm. Diinesh, you’re with us.”

“Only take weapons we can conceal,” Silas added. “And no shooting people.” He looked at Diinesh.

“What about us?” asked Blakavar.

Silas glanced over his shoulder at the dilapidated dockfront. Several people had already stopped to stare at the new arrival.

“Don’t get into any big fights. But if somebody comes trying to mess with us… make them go away.” He poked the edge of one hand into the palm of the other, the Dark Elvish gesture for stabbing someone. “You know, quietly.”

“Keep watch.” Jazal motioned to Goheen, who tossed him a wad of cloth. He shook it out and handed a length to Silas. “Cloak. To break up the look that we’re in uniform.” He passed another piece to Diinesh, who threw it around his shoulders like a hood.

“Masks?” Silas asked.

“May as well. We need to be able to see.”

“Hey, you look like the Faceless Friars of Harnood,” Goheen called.

“The what?”

“A religious order on some Kree world.” Jazal threw his own cloak over his shoulder. “He’s got a point. If anyone tries to approach us, just bow, bless them, and keep moving. They’re less likely to bother missionaries.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Ick. And I thought Jersey was bad.” Silas sidestepped a rotting pile of garbage. Jazal put a hand on his shoulder to steer him and they blended back into the crowds of what appeared to be the commercial district. Here the appearance of wealth mingled with obvious poverty. Glitzy signs on new buildings advertised the latest entertainments, while underneath ragged children dodged foot traffic and beggars sat in the doorways of collapsing tenements. People of every description pushed past: blue people, yellow people, pink people, people with fur or scales or tentacles, people whom Silas would never have guessed were people. Air traffic moved overhead, while the occasional small car jockeyed its way down the street. The smells of cold meat and decay were everywhere.

“We need to try and limit our interactions here.” They stopped under the awning of a pawn shop while Jazal consulted his list. “The fewer people we deal with, the less trouble we’re likely to have.”

“We’re not going to be able to get everything from one dealer,” Diinesh protested.

“Hey guys, talk louder. Somebody might actually notice we’re Dark Elves.” Silas stuffed his hands into his armpits and scanned the crowd. Jazal sighed. Before he could reply, Diinesh started and went for his knife.

“Lost, dears?” 

Silas and Jazal spun. The speaker was a hunched figure in a greasy black coat. She – Silas only guessed it was a she because the word “hag” kept going off in his brain – held out a hand missing several fingers. “Need directions?”

Silas stepped up. “We’re looking for a parts dealer for deep space craft.” The stranger smiled, showing an assortment of brown teeth. Silas tried not to flinch as her breath hit him. 

“I know just the place!” She pointed over the crowd. “Go down the end of this street and turn left, then go down the end of that one and turn right. It’s all the way back, can’t miss it. Grade A number one service!” She leaned close to Silas’s face and beamed. He tried not to gag.

“Ugh – thanks. We’re gonna take off now…”

Jazal fished in his bag. “Here.” He held out a pressed salt tablet. Their guide made a face.

“Blech, none of that. You just tell ‘em ol’ Mura sent you!” She cackled as they moved away, back into the crowd.

“Am I imagining things, or does all this seem… suspect?” Diinesh muttered, once they were out of earshot. 

“Skeavy,” Silas offered. “This whole place is skeavy in the extreme.”

“The sooner we get out of here, the better.” Jazal pushed ahead, forging their way.

Something moved at the edge of Silas’s vision. He turned just in time to see a small hand slide out of Diinesh’s belt pouch. 

“Wha –” To late, the man turned. The little pickpocket was already darting off through the crowd. Silas dove after her.

“Hey! Get back here! Thief!”

Cloak and armor notwithstanding, he was easily as good as the child at dodging through a crowd. At the edge of the street, she broke free of the press and started to run. He sprinted after her down a narrow alleyway, Jazal and Diinesh struggling to keep him in sight.

“Gotcha!” The little girl – human, maybe eight years old – squealed as he caught her. “Fork it over!” He pried the item from her hand: a little roll of tools, used for fine work like relay boards and splices. “You know, if you needed money, all you had to do was ask us.”

“Good to know.” Something clicked – not exactly like a round being chambered, but close enough that Silas still thought gun. He turned, slowly raising his hands, and found himself staring down the wrong end of exactly that.

“Woah.”

“Let’s see this money you got to give away,” the scar-faced man snarled. The little girl darted away behind him and disappeared through a doorway. 

“I don’t have it on me. My buddy’s got all of it.” Silas eyed the man. He stepped closer, pushing the barrel of the gun at his face. 

“Don’t mess with me –”

Something splashed further up the alley – Jazal and Diinesh, on their way. The man didn’t look away, but he blinked, a split-second startle reflex. Silas seized him by the wrist and elbow and smacked him in the face with his own pistol.

“Who’s laughing now, asshole?” Silas turned the weapon on his attacker as Jazal and Diinesh came to a halt beside him. The man looked up at the three masked warriors, whimpered, and scrambled away. “Prick.”

“So much for staying out of trouble,” Jazal panted.

Silas examined the pistol, running his hand over the dingy red furniture before pocketing it. “Still wanna give that dealer a try?”

“We should take a look, but I’d be slow about going in.” Diinesh accepted his tool kit back. “The more I see of this place, the more it seems like a trap.”


	7. Chapter 7

Upon investigation it wasn’t so much a trap as an obvious dead end. The “dealership” consisted of a narrow shop, its shelves packed with piles of dirty scrap. Two wrecked spacecraft sat outside with hand-painted signs advertising parts. It took Jazal one glance to announce that they wouldn’t find their supplies here, and it took Silas ten minutes of arguing with the proprietor to be allowed to leave. When he finally stepped aside, they all but ran for the comparative safety of the streets, hands on their valuables, Diinesh muttering darkly about homicide. 

Back at the Harrow, Silas sat down against a strut while Jazal and the others debated their next move. God, his knees hurt; for once, he didn’t care that he was giving up the lead. He curled up, pulling his cloak around him. The men’s voices faded into the background as his eyes closed.

Bum-bup.

That was odd.

Bum-bup.

He could hear a heartbeat through the floor.

Bum-bup.

But the station was a severed head. How could it have a heartbeat?

“– well, somebody’s got to run the network. If we can get a hold of that person –”

“What are you suggesting, we get the local pimp to help us?”

Silas startled awake. 

“Hush,” someone said, and the voices stopped. He stretched out and drifted off again.

Bum-bup.

Maybe whoever had cut the head off had missed the vein connecting it to the heart… No, that was ridiculous.

Bum-bup.

Silas drifted in a shallow sleep, thinking about heartbeats and hearts, the diagram his sister had shown him. Red veins coming off it, leading everywhere. Lots of them, leading to the brain…

Bum-bup.

How did this particular heart connect to Knowhere? He thought of red veins; the largest one must lead to the heart.

Bum-bup.

The heartbeat was coming from inside the head. That would explain how it was still attached, he thought lazily. He traced the largest vein with his mind, down and in, near the center, up and under the base of the brain…

Bum-bup. 

There.

Bum-bup.

The heart was beating there.

Bum-bup. Bum-bup. Bum-bup.

\-------

Silas jolted awake.

“Sir?” Blakavar crouched in front of him, his hand outstretched like he was going to shake him.

“Huh? How long was I asleep?” He tried to remember what happened before he lay down. “Ugh, I had the weirdest dream…”

“Have a good rest?” Goheen called.

“Yeah.” He sat up and checked the time on the HUD. He’d been asleep less than an hour.

“Are you alright, sir – Silas?”

“Uh-huh.” He stood up and stretched. “I had this dream where I was wandering around the station for hours…”

“Since you’re up, we might as well let you know what we’ve worked out,” Jazal called. He levered himself up from a sitting position, stretching his legs. “We ought to try and contact this Tivan Group. They run the place; if what we need is here, they’ll know, and they probably have some kind of –”

“Hold on.” Silas leaned on the bulkhead. Even awake, red veins and heartbeats filled his mind. He could still visualize the path of the largest vein, as clear as the images on the HUD, leading inwards from the dock. They had to move quickly, before the picture faded. “This place is complicated; we don’t have the time to sort through it all. We have to get to the heart of the matter.”


	8. Chapter 8

“This is it.” Silas stared at the scene before them, crossing his arms. Jazal turned toward him, mask hiding his expression. 

“I could be wrong, but that’s the brainstem, not the heart…”

“Actually, that’s the pituitary.” Blakavar stared overhead. All the time he spent with Violet seemed to have paid off.

“That’s a smoking crater, is what it is,” said Diinesh. He was right.

The building in front of them seemed to have recently suffered an explosion. The façade was blown out all over the street, and mangled beams leaned away from what had once been a dome. Intact wings stretched away to either side, but the whole center was devastated.

“This is it,” Silas repeated. He could feel the others staring at him. He must sound insane to them, going on about hearts and being led. Maybe he had still been half-asleep when he ordered them out here… “Let’s take a look.”

“There had better be hydralizne,” muttered Diinesh. “Or liquor. Or both.”

“Both is good,” added Blakavar.

“Someone’s coming!” Goheen reached for his knife.

It was a young man in a white suit. Except for the ash streaking his face and clothes, he could have been a waiter in a fancy restaurant. He hurried toward them from the rubble.

“Greetings, älfeneel.” He stumbled over the word, fidgeting. “My master was about to send for you, but you’ve already found your way here…”

Silas felt the others shift behind him. “Who is your master?”

“Taneleer Tivan, the Collector.” 

Diinesh elbowed Jazal. Silas nodded once, trying to conceal a shiver. “Well, we’re here. Lead on.”

He led them not toward the grand entrance, but toward a side door that appeared to still be intact. 

“What happened here?” Silas asked as they picked their way through broken glass and debris. The boy glanced back at him, eyes wide.

“Carina defied him.” He all but whispered it, whether in awe or horror. He chanced a single glance back at the others, and then turned straight ahead, tight-lipped. Silas didn’t press the matter.

The side door opened onto a series of bare passages, and then – around a corner – onto a massive gallery, spanning the length of the building and filled with display cases.

Or rather, it was the remains of a massive gallery.

The center of the hall, not far from where they now stood, appeared to be ground zero of the explosion. All the cases for a sizable radius were blown out, their contents mingling with the broken glass on the floor. Attendants dressed like their guide scurried through the wreckage. 

“So what does this guy collect?” Silas glanced around him. The intact cases, at least the ones he could see, contained an assortment of mostly living things. Their guide paused next to a plant whose tendrils moved behind the glass, following their progress.

“He’s the keeper of the largest collection of interstellar fauna, relics, and species in the galaxy. Or he was,” he stammered. “We’re still doing inventory.”

Silas glanced at the fish swimming in another case. Something about this place felt stifling, sickly-sweet. He had felt the same thing in some of the foster homes he’d lived in as a child, the ones that put up a warm and wholesome front for the social worker, but behind closed doors –

He shuddered. In his pocket, his hand closed over a grip – he still had the pistol he had taken from the mugger. 

Chill, man, keep it together. This is not the time. He took a deep breath.

“My master, Taneleer Tivan!” The boy gestured grandly at the man in front of them – and then bolted.

Tall, imposing, elegant – or he had been elegant, before he had gotten that black eye and bandaged head. A bedraggled, fur-lined cape hung over one shoulder, and his nails were painted in chipped black polish. He bowed, and Silas returned the gesture, but kept his eyes up.

“Greetings, good sirs.” Tivan spoke in a lazy drawl. “I trust you’ve come here for the ladies?”

“Um – what? No, that’s not –”

“Oh, pish, that’s just what I call them. Five members of your species, all female, in cryostorage for the last several millennia at least. I received them that way, I don’t know who put them there…”

Silas’s heart leapt to his throat. “Dark Elves? They’re – they’re alive?”

“Alive, yes. But I lack the means to –” He motioned vaguely. “—defrost them safely. Ordinarily I’d be unwilling to part with them, but as you can see, we’ve had an unexpected – ehem.” He indicated the wreckage around them. “And given the resulting power fluctuations, I must liquidate a portion of the collection or risk losing the whole.” He glanced at them. “I trust you have the means to care for them?”

Silas could feel the others staring at him. This was not what they came here for – this was so not what they came here for.

“How much?” Leena’s going to kill me.

“A low payment, of course, contingent on biological sampling from any progeny produced in order to preserve your species…”

Silas’s mind spun. Five living älfeneel whom he had never met – five women, moreover, in a species so reduced that his sister and cousin were supposed to be the last females. For a moment, the prospect of female company loomed larger in his mind than survival itself.

“Show me,” he said.

Tivan led the way toward the back of the gallery, where the displays were mostly intact. Behind a colonnade ran a bank of cold storage capsules. Tivan indicated five adjacent modules. 

“In good condition, for now…” He folded his hands and stepped back, waiting for their decision. Silas stood on tiptoe and scraped away the frost on the glass to stare at the face behind it. White lashes fanned in sleep against rich, dark skin, and her hair appeared to be put up in warrior braids. He glanced at the indicator panel on the side of the capsule. Stable. For now.

“Jazal, work with the man. Get an exchange rate and figure out what we owe him. Take a guard when you go to get the money.” He turned back to Tivan. The Collector spread his arms and bowed.

“Delightful doing business with you.”

“That’s not everything we came here for. We need materials for our ship; interspace-grade thorium and other things. If you don’t have that kind of stuff, I’d appreciate if you told me where else we can get it.”

Tivan raised his eyebrows as if affronted by Silas’s directness. “I’m sure we can work out an agreement. If the items cannot be found in the Collection, I’m sure the Tivan Group can supply something amenable.” 

Silas glanced at Jazal, who nodded. An attendant appeared – seemingly out of thin air – and the two moved off to work out the details. Tivan gestured languidly.

“I’m afraid I’m unable to entertain you properly. Feel free to wait here if you like; I can assure you’ll be kept notified about the transaction.”

Silas tried to will the hairs on the back of his neck to lie flat. “I appreciate it.”


	9. Chapter 9

The transaction ultimately took up most of their new-found treasury. “Steep,” Jazal called it, until Silas reminded him that they were also getting secrecy and five of their people back. Diinesh, Goheen, and Blakavar headed back to the Harrow, accompanied by a crew of Tivan’s people, to begin loading. Silas and Jazal stayed behind to ensure it was all done as they agreed.

“Wonder how many graves he had to rob to get all this?” Jazal stared at a display of artifacts.

“It isn’t the graves he robbed that bothers me.” Silas tugged at his cloak. The sense of a disembodied heartbeat had never really faded. Jazal glanced at him.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, this place just… it reminds me of places I grew up. Bad places.”

Jazal nodded. “We’ll be out of here soon enough. Hey – careful with that!”

They were moving the cryo-sleepers – finally. Jazal darted over to pick up a loose hose that dragged across the floor. Silas stared after him, only half watching. 

There were people in here, in the Collection. He could feel their eyes on him from the display cases, had seen them watching the activity. The others had seen, too, but had said nothing. He tried not to think about it, didn’t want to think about it – not until he could do something about it.

“No – like this, see? Now it won’t drag.” Jazal gesticulated at the movers, who stared back at him blankly. Silas shook his head. Jazal had it under control; even when everyone else was losing their minds, he had it under control.

There was still a good half hour before the loading was done. Stuffing his hands through his belt, Silas took off strolling through the cases, trying to get his mind off heartbeats and veins. He wished there was a section where the displays didn’t watch him back. On edge as he was, he didn’t notice he was getting near the damaged section until glass crunched underfoot. 

He stopped, kicked aside some debris, looked around. There was no one here. Even most of the cases were empty. 

Bum-bup.

A line of red stretched across his vision. He blinked, and it disappeared.

Bum-bup.

The sense was back – the sense of something alive here, someone was alive here, calling to him the way Jajinlaari had called, demanding his attention. 

Okay. Where are you? He started forward, arms out-stretched as though he couldn’t see. Away from the destruction, not far now…

He almost fell over a kit bag lying in his way. Cursing, he shoved it to one side, then noticed the contents. Medical. For some reason, apprehension began to clutch at his heart. He stood up, took a step forward, and saw what he had been looking for.

A makeshift hospital cot had been set up here between the cases, and on it, restrained at the wrists, ankles, and throat, was an älfenää, a Dark Elf. Battered, incomplete armor marked him as a warrior, but the braids that should have told his status were gone; he was bald as a pealed egg. An IV tube dripped fluids into his arm, while beeping monitors kept track of his vital signs. There were burns and gashes on his survival suit, and his face was swollen and bruised.

Trembling, Silas knelt next to him and searched for a pulse the way he’d been taught. 

Bum-bup. Bum-bup.

“Jazal! JAZAL, GET OVER HERE!”

\-------

“He must have gotten lost during the Convergence.” Jazal kept clenching and unclenching his hands while he looked at the other man. The Dark Elf hadn’t moved or opened his eyes since they’d found him.

“Christ, what is he doing here?!” Silas paced, running his hands through his hair. “Do you know his name?”

Jazal shrugged helplessly. “I can’t tell… poison my wells, what did they do to him?”

A voice crackled over their comms. 

“Sir, they just brought in the last load. We’re nearly ready to go.”

“Batten down what you can and fire up the engines,” Silas ordered before Jazal could react. “We’ve got a complication.”

“What are you doing?” Jazal asked. Silas strode past him.

“We’re not leaving without him. Start cutting him loose, I’m gonna find Tivan.”

He didn’t have far to look. The Collector spread his arms in a florid gesture as Silas rounded a corner. 

“Master Älfenää, I trust you’ve been informed that the loading process is nearly complete?”

“You didn’t tell me there was another Dark Elf in here!” Silas stormed up to him, hands clenched. Tivan looked around as if surprised.

“There is…?”

“Cut the crap, Liberace, we already found him. You got anything else you want to tell us?”

“I’m afraid he’s out of your price range.”

“Oh yeah?”

“In his present state…” Tivan hummed and rolled his eyes. “500,000 standard credits?”

“Five hundred thou…” Silas tasted bile. That was as much as they’d paid for everything else together.

“A more than fair price. Although if you wish to wait, I must inform you that it will increase as his health improves.”

At that moment a shuffle of feet announced the presence of Jazal and his charge. Tivan saw them and immediately stopped gesticulating.

“We don’t have that kind of money.” Silas tried to keep his voice even.

“Then I’m afraid you won’t have him.” Tivan motioned to an attendant, who started toward Jazal. “Of course, we could theoretically set up a payment plan, factoring in medical costs and the increase in value once he improves…”

“We’re not paying for a prisoner exchange!”

The Collector stared at him down his nose. All the warmth and congeniality were gone. 

“If he’s out of your price range, then he’s out of your price range.”

For a split second, Silas balked. Then rage flooded through his veins. He went for his weapons, and his hand hit on the pistol he’d confiscated earlier. In a heartbeat, it was pointed between Tivan’s eyes.

“You want to make a deal with me, here’s your deal. We walk out with our man, or I blow your brains out all over your little museum, and then we walk out with our man.”

“Ah,” was all the now cross-eyed Collector could manage.

“Jaz, get going.” Out of the corner of his eye he could see them. The prisoner was on his feet now, but barely, hanging over Jazal’s shoulders for support. Tivan’s attendant had frozen in his tracks. 

Silas adjusted his stance, keeping the pistol pointed between the Collector’s eyes while he listened to the sounds of hurried shuffling towards the exit. 

“You and me are gonna wait right here. Anybody messes with them,” he jerked his head, indicating the escapees, “and you’re dead.”

Tivan’s eyes flicked from weapon to his rapidly retreating prize and back again. He worked his mouth but said nothing.


	10. Chapter 10

Minutes seemed to stretch to years as Silas stood there, covering his comrades’ retreat. His arm began to ache; he switched hands without turning the pistol away from Tivan. No one spoke.

At last – at long last – a voice came over his comm.

“Chief, we’re well clear. Where are you?”

Silas lowered the weapon, pocketed it, took a step toward the exit.

“Well, bye.” Then he turned on his heel and ran.

“Get them! Stop them! Bring them back!” Tivan screamed behind him. 

Running footsteps signaled that the attendants were obeying his order. White-clad figures moved at the sides of his vision, armored ones too, trying to cut off his escape. At the entrance, the door hung half off its hinges, damaged by whatever had taken out the center of the museum. Guards and attendants closed in, trying to block him. Silas charged their line, broke through, and sprinted into the streets.

“Blakavar! Guys! Get the ship going! We’re comin’ in hot!”

“What the hells is happening out there?!” 

“Just move it!” He crashed through a crowd of shoppers and kept going.

He caught up with Jazal and his charge almost two blocks from the museum. Silas had underestimated the man’s size; standing upright, he would have been easily a head taller than Jazal. As it was, his weight pulled the other man down as he half supported, half dragged him along. It looked like a miracle they’d made it this far.

“Jaz!” He seized the sick man’s other arm and pulled it across his own shoulders. “We gotta move!”

Together they could move at closer to a run. Tivan’s attendants had been slowed down by the crowds, but were closing the distance. Silas’s chest burned from exertion. 

“– not gonna make it!” Jazal choked.

“Keep going.” Oh, like HELL am I taking this guy’s place back there!

They were closing in now. Silas scrambled for an idea, some way to fight their way out. 

“Incoming!”

“Look out!”

Something black swooped low, engines roaring. The Harrow! Blaster bolts ricocheted off the hull. Goheen crouched in the open gangway, returning fire.

“Go!” Silas all but threw Jazal and their man towards the drop ship before turning to face their pursuers. Half of Tivan’s men stood with their mouths open, falling back in terror, while the rest shot pointlessly at the ship’s black bulk. Engines whined overhead; a swarm of small craft was moving in on them.

Armed, he thought, and we can’t fight that many. There – far above – a disused mining gantry, half fallen down already. He could reach it if he stretched his mind…

Crack! The gantry took out half the little ships on its way down. The survivors scattered like gnats. 

Silas barely saw all this. Darkness poured into his field of vision. A hot wind shrieked at his back; someone was shouting his name. The last thing he was aware of was deck plates crashing into his side, and a whirling, sickening disorientation.

\-------

He came to in darkness – the Harrow. Tense voices echoed from the cockpit. The deck plates reeled and lurched under him. He turned his head – Goheen clutched his rifle with one hand and the bulkhead with the other. Jazal crouched on the floor next to a prone figure – Silas remembered Tivan’s prisoner and their escape. Both men glanced up when he stirred. He could all but see their eyes, wide as plates behind the masks.

“You alright, sir?” Goheen’s voice was a note higher than usual. 

Silas sat up to reply, snapped his mouth shut, and scrambled to his feet. He made it to the bulkhead before vomiting. The others groaned behind him. If they survived, they would have to clean that up.

“Gonna make it, boy?” Jazal had dropped all formality. Silas nodded. “Good. Grab a bucket or something and hang on. We’re not out of this yet.”

Goheen moved to help Silas up. “Where did you find him?” He indicated the man stretched out on the floor. “Were there any others?”

Silas shook his head. “He… he called to me.” He didn’t think it was safe to say more – his stomach still threatened violent rebellion. Goheen helped him to a seat on a pile of wiring.

“Takes a lot out of you, doesn’t it.”

“What the hell hit me?”

“Probably that gantry you pulled down from a mile away. We wouldn’t have gotten away otherwise.”

First Jajinlaari, then the prisoner, now the gantry. Silas shuddered and spat out the taste of bile. “What’s happening? How am I...?” He held out his hands, stared at them.

“An enchanter?” Goheen offered. “You come from enchanters, it’s not really surprising you have powers, too.”

“Telepathy – telekinesis.” Silas’s voice still felt raw in his throat. “That’s what they call it on Earth. It’s not supposed to be real –” The Harrow lurched. In the cockpit, someone cursed.

“Looked real enough to me.” Jazal threw a cargo net over the sick man and secured the corners. “If you’ve got any more like that in you, now might be the time. Prakha!” They lurched again. Something crashed in the back of the hold. “Goheen, make sure that’s secure! Damn, the gravity sync –” He darted to the forward access panel and started pulling conduits.

Silas’s hands still shook violently. Clutching the bulkhead, he pulled himself into the cockpit. Blakavar had the helm. Diinesh stood at the copilot’s station, frantically making adjustments.

“Debris coming up a-starboard.” Blakavar’s voice was low and urgent. “Get maneuvering back up, I need to make this turn.”

Diinesh moved the control, then slapped it. “Jazal! Stop fooling with the grav sync!”

Clunk. A background hum increased in depth. The little ship stopped heaving.

“Try it now,” Jazal called up.

Blakavar heaved on the controls. On the HUD, space rotated around them; Silas felt his feet press more firmly into the deck plates. The debris disappeared to their rear.

“Good call!” Diinesh shouted.

“What’s the pursuit looking like?” Jazal clambered past Silas into the cockpit.

Blakavar didn’t look away from the HUD. “We’ve got incoming from multiple sectors – they’re trying to flank us. If they get close enough to get a shot in, we’re in trouble.”

“Can we cloak?”

“Not without dumping speed. And they’re stirring up the nebula. With all this dust hitting us, the cloak won’t matter.”

“Diinesh, how long until we can jump?”

Diinesh threw a switch with his left hand while holding another steady with his right. “I can only do so many things at a time!”

Silas could feel Jazal’s eyes on him. He would gladly have helped, if only he could stop shivering…

“Diinesh, shove over and start running the sequence. I’ll handle the controls.” Jazal took the copilot’s position. 

“Make it quick,” muttered Blakavar. “We’re running out of options.”

Silas shut his eyes. Whatever sense he had reached out with had gone numb with overexertion. He felt used up, wrung out; the crisis was reaching its peak and he had nothing left to give.

A tone blared the signal: Brace. Silas curled up at the base of the bulkhead and clenched his jaw. Please, God, let us make it through this, please let us make it out alive – 

“– And, BOOM, we’re here!” Blakavar whooped. Diinesh slumped over the navigation controls in relief.

“Chart another course. We need to make sure we’ve lost them.” Jazal turned and headed into the main bay. 

“But we just made a jump, the engine won’t take another this soon –”

“You just get us pointed in the right direction, Goheen and I will make it happen!”

Blakavar glanced over his shoulder. “Hang in there, sir.”

“Don’t call me ‘sir’,” Silas slurred.


	11. Chapter 11

They made it through the next series of jumps with no sign of their pursuers. When he felt revived, Silas joined the others in the cockpit.

“How we doing?” The silhouette of Harudheen loomed on the HUD. 

“We’re going to have to let the reactor cool down,” Diinesh advised. “Not sure we can go any further without rebuilding the engines anyway.”

He glanced at Blakavar. The young man leaned against the console, mask in hand, a bleary, vacant expression on his face. Shadows had formed under his eyes.

“Hey. Go back and get some rest.”

The pilot stared for a moment as if processing the words. “Vääth. Ruushuudhith.” He trudged to the rear.

“We can’t stay here long.” Jazal stepped to the controls. “Word will travel. Someone’s going to come looking for us.”

Silas nodded. “Can we get a message back to the Ark?”

Diinesh and Jazal exchanged glances. Diinesh nodded. 

“If we cut in auxiliary power we can get a quick one through.”

“Do that. We need to tell Leena – we need to tell the Vörth what’s going on.”

Jazal motioned to him while Diinesh made the necessary adjustments. YOU need to tell her, the gesture meant.

A window opened in the HUD, grainy and flickering. Silas stepped up.

“Away Team to Command, anybody there?”

A face appeared. “This is Command. Speak.” Bad reception turned the Commander’s resonant voice into a growl.

“Algrim, is the Vörth around? I need to talk to her.”

“I’m here.” The broad, dark face was replaced by a narrow, pale one. “What is it?”

Silas hesitated. Leena will be pissed. But the sooner his cousin knew what sort of mess they were in, the fewer people were likely to get hurt by it.

“We got a problem.” Best to get right down to it. “We got the supplies we needed. But we pissed somebody off. We think we got a tail – if we don’t now, we will soon. The Harrow’s in rough shape. We’re over Harudheen but I’m not sure what repairs we’ll have to make. We got one man hurt pretty bad, and we got five individuals in cryosleep that we don’t know how to wake up.” I don’t know what to do. I think I screwed up. He took a breath, searching for what to say next.

“Silas, what are you talking about? There shouldn’t be anyone on Harudheen for you to piss off. What do you mean you have people in cryosleep?” 

Flicker flicker. Glitch.

“Damn.” Diinesh jiggled a control switch. A light began blinking on the HUD.

“We have company,” Jazal warned.

“I gotta let you go, Leena, we gotta recloak.” The transmission cut out before he could say anything else. Jazal brought the cloak back online and pointed to a series of dots on the display. 

“Ships that just came out of jump.” There were at least a dozen. A transmission indicator began to pulse. Silas activated it.

“Attention, Dark Elf ship.” The voice had a twangy accent he didn’t recognize. “This is the Ravager Fleet. We got you out numbered, so give up and come quiet-like. Or don’t.” The message ended with what sounded like a snicker.

Diinesh looked up, alarmed.

“They know where we are.”

“How would they –”

“They were in-system while we were transmitting. They can triangulate the signal and find about where we are, and then it’s just a matter of stabbing until they draw blood.”

“Oh geez.” Silas staggered. “We gotta get out of here.”

“If we move, they’ll see the vectoring emissions –”

“We need a decoy.” Jazal sprinted down the hatch. “Don’t do anything until my signal. Goheen! Uncouple the auxiliary power cell! Where are those maneuvering beacons –” He began tearing at a wall panel.

“What are you going to do, throw it at them?” Diinesh shouted over his shoulder.

“More or less. We throw it out the airlock right as we start our run – with no cloaking, it should show up clearer than us.” Something popped in a shower of sparks. Jazal swore.

“What is ‘it’?” Silas moved to the copilot’s station as Diinesh took the helm.

“Emissions and transmissions decoy. Something to shoot at besides us.”

“If you throw out the auxiliary power cell –”

“It won’t do us any good if they catch us!”

Something heavy rattled in the hold. Jazal’s and Goheen’s muffled voices drifted through the hatch.

“They’re closing in,” Diinesh called. “We’re getting swept by tracker beams.”

Agonizing minutes passed, punctuated by muffled oaths and mechanical noises from the hold. Finally Jazal called up:

“Got it!”

“Say when!” Diinesh crouched, ready to gun the engine.

“Now! Go!”

A roar of changing air pressure – a bang as the airlock seal slammed. Silas rocked back and tried to keep his balance as Diinesh pushed the little ship as far as it would go.

“They’re shooting at us!”

The streaks flew harmlessly past, focused some distance astern. 

“It worked – they’re targeting the beacon.”

“They’ll be shooting a while.” Jazal climbed through the hatch. “It’s smaller than we are. They’ll be lucky to hit it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vääth: Yes  
> Ruushuudhith: Thanks


	12. Chapter 12

They took refuge behind the planet’s lone moon, Tove. The men took it in turns to sleep and watch over the sick man in the hold. He seemed to be sliding between delirium and unconsciousness without ever becoming lucid. At one point, Silas awoke to find Blakavar crouched near the man’s makeshift cot, his face knit as if in horror.

“You alright?”

Blakavar looked up. “I – I think I know who he is.”

Silas scooted closer. “Who?”

“Djoom. You know, one of the – no, you wouldn’t know him. He was lost during the – right before you came. I thought he was dead.” He turned away; Silas thought he saw tears.

“Was he your friend?”

“He was my – he was my mentor. He looked after me when I was a boy. He taught me, he braided my hair when I passed my trials. He was like a father to me.” He looked down at the ruined man before them. A sheen of sweat lay over his face; his breathing sounded ragged and wet. “Is he – is he going to make it?”

Silas had no idea how to answer that. “Yeah. He’ll make it. Once we get back, Kittas and Vi will get him looked at. He’s made it this far, he’s got pretty good odds.” He wracked his brain for anything his sister had told him that might help. “You should talk to him. Sometimes people can hear things even if they look really out of it.”

Blakavar licked his lips, nodded. He knelt beside the sick man and took his hand. 

“Hey, Uncle. Hold on. You’re going to be alright. We’re taking you home, everything will be alright now.”

“Oh, bloody hells!” Goheen’s voice echoed through the hatch. He sounded like he wanted to cry. Silas bolted to his feet and ran to the cockpit.

“What happened?”

Instead of answering, Goheen motioned to the HUD. Silas’s stomach dropped. Jazal, Diinesh, and Blakavar crowded in behind him.

“Is that the –”

“That’s the Ark.” Silas stared at the shape on the HUD. He felt numb.

\-------

“Where did all these ships come from?!”

Algrim swept the controls, scanning and rescanning to get a better read on their new foes. Khaleen stood beside him, her face a mask of shock. 

“Who’s ships are those? Where’s our team?”

“No sign of the Harrow. The ships are all different makes, but they’re moving together. My guess is they’re some sort of slap-dash unit, maybe pirates. They’re heavily armed. Do you want to fight them, vörthih?”

They both new it was impossible. Even the attempt would be nothing more than an elaborate suicide.

“Vörthih, transmission coming through.”

A twangy voice came over the speakers. “Well hey, nice of you to join us.” The speaker sounded like he was missing most of his front teeth.

Khaleen shut her eyes in dismay.

\-------

“What the hells are they doing here? The ship’s barely spaceworthy!” 

“We’re going to die.” Blakavar didn’t seem to notice he’d spoken the words aloud. His face had gone slack with despair. Goheen and Jazal stared at Silas as if he knew what to do. Diinesh covered his eyes.

We’re going to need a much bigger decoy beacon, he thought. Who am I kidding, where are we going to get another auxiliary power cell? Planet-side, of course. Huh, as long as we’re down there we may as well get a whole new ship –

Wait a minute.

“Jaz, how many guys does it take to fly a warship? Like a trireme or an Ark.”

“Even if all eleven people on this ship could work, it wouldn’t be enough to put her through battle maneuvers.”

“I’m not talking about battle maneuvers, just getting her in the sky. Could you do it with two or three?”

Jazal blinked. “Yes – she’d be little more than a target, but yes.”

“How long would it take?”

Diinesh lifted his head from his hands. He stared at Blakavar, then at Goheen. 

“You’re not really thinking –”

“How long?”

“The shape those ships were it – an hour or less from the time we boarded. If nothing went wrong with the moorings.”

“Ok. Here’s the plan.” Silas turned to his crew. “Blakavar – Diinesh – Goheen. We’re gonna drop you planetside. Pick whichever ship you think you can fly, get it in the air. While you’re down there, grab as many power cells and beacons as you can. Rig ‘em up, get in a fighting position, then drop ‘em as far and wide as you can and then make yourselves known. It’ll look like you’ve got a bunch of little ships around you. We’ll take point in the Harrow and do the talking. You just hang tight and, you know, look scary. If we pull this off, we won’t have to do any fighting.”

Goheen and Diinesh exchanged glances, then nodded. 

“Like the story of Ashkaleth the Valient.” Blakavar’s confidence had returned.

“Something like that. Jaz?”

“Eh, our odds will be better than they are now. Pausajamaadh önööna!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vörthih: my queen  
> Pausajamaadh önööna: Let's get ready!


	13. Chapter 13

It took thirty heart-pounding seconds for the three men to disembark. As soon as they were clear of the engine intake, Jazal cloaked and took off. 

“If everything works out, it should take them around half a watch to get airborne. Pray that Algrim and the Vörth can hold that long.”

Silas stared at the marker that showed the location of the Ark, well away from the besieged planet. The Ravagers appeared to have given up searching for the Harrow and were fanned in a loose half-sphere facing the lone, massive ship.

“Who are these guys? Why are they suddenly coming down on us, too?”

Jazal took off his mask. “It could be a coincidence, but the timing seems too close.” He glanced back at the hold. “I think if we didn’t have a bounty on us before, we do now.”

Silas grabbed the edge of the console. His stomach roiled. “Jaz – I think I screwed up, Jaz. I think this is my fault.”

“Enough of that.”

“It was my idea to go out there –”

“And it was my job to oversee and advise you. You’re still a boy.”

“Dude, everybody we know is gonna die because of –”

“Alright, that’s enough.” Jazal struck him a glancing blow, not enough to injure, but enough to shock. “The entire universe is trying to kill us. You – all of us – have been doing whatever we can think of to stop that.” He held out his hands. “Sometimes we fail.”

“We fail – and everybody we care about dies!”

“Yes.” He looked exhausted. “But they’d die if we hid and did nothing. At least we try, we fight. There’s no shame in fighting your hardest and failing.”

“So you’re just ok with that?”

“I’m facing the same odds as you, boy. At least I’m staring them down with dignity instead of panicking.” He put a hand on Silas’s shoulder. “There’s no shame, there’s no defeat, unless we give up. And you wouldn’t have sent those men out if you had given up.”

Silas gulped air, trying to get himself under control. “Is it gonna do any good?”

Jazal shrugged. “As long as we’re fighting, there’s a chance we might win.”

“A snowball’s chance in hell.”

“It’s still a chance.”

“If we live, Leena’s gonna kill me.”

“Then face her with your head held high, because if you face her, it will be as a man. Come on, come back here. Sit.” He ushered Silas into the hold. “If we’re going into battle, or if we’re going to try talking our way out of this one – especially if we’re going to try it, actually…” He dug through a supply kit for a comb and began tugging at Silas’s disorderly hair. 

“What are you doing?”

“You want them to believe you’ve got an army to throw at them, you need to look like a war leader. You’re a prince, you need to wear a prince’s braids.”

“They won’t know what it means.”

“No. But you will.”


	14. Chapter 14

The hours crept by as Silas and Jazal watched the standoff. The Ravagers seemed unwilling to launch an attack; they couldn’t have known how defenseless the Ark really was. Her most recent battle had cracked and torn away huge swathes of armor plating, and inadequate repairs had left her sluggish. But the engines still burned red, and as long as she kept her distance, she remained imposing and formidable.

As anxious as they were, neither man mentioned the team they had left planetside. Instead, whispered conversations dwelt on what Khaleen and Algrim were thinking and doing, veering off to memories of friends and family long gone, then lapsing into silence before starting over again out of restlessness and nerves. Silas despaired that the wait would ever end, recoiled in terror knowing it would.

Finally: a ping on the HUD, a single pulse from a far-off beacon. They were ready.

“Djonajel!” Jazal powered up the engine.

Silas took over the copilot’s station. Wait – how will they know where we are? What if they don’t uncloak at the right time? What if we end up in the wrong position?

“I’ve got a reading coming up – blurry, their cloak must not be working right. It’s definitely ours.” 

Silas saw the image rising through the atmosphere. Blazing dots began to calve off as it sped out: a dozen, twenty, the burning emissions and pinging comm beacons screaming to the void: A ship is here! Jazal brought them up at the head of the spreading formation and dropped the cloak.

“Switch places! Your turn, War Prince!”

Silas felt the pilot’s controls under his hands, looked up at the hopeless odds above them, down at the ruined world beneath. Fear flooded his veins. He let it pass through, galvanizing him. As long as we’re fighting.

“Attention! Ravager fleet!” He dropped his voice as low as he could manage, focused on the proud, formal accent Algrim and the others used. “I am Silas, vörthänään, commander of the Armies of the Dark Elves. You are ordered to stand down and depart this system.”

A communication window opened before him, showing a thin, scraggly face kitted out with tech implants. Behind them, the commandeered trireme had fully decloaked.

“Big words, little man. We got thirty ships here, and a million-credit bounty on you from the Tivan Group. Be smart.”

Silas smiled, baring his teeth. “The Asgardians told the universe we were dead. The Tivan Group told you we were one ship and a handful of men.” Uncertainty crept into the Ravager’s eyes. “Do you want to know how we survived all these centuries? Attack us and find out.” 

The Ravager wavered. He glanced about him, possibly at the readouts of the fleet on one side, the massive Ark on the other. Then he cursed. The window closed. Silas braced.

The Ravager ships formed up.

Stood off.

Jumped.

Silas leaned against the console. “Are they gone?” His voice squeaked.

“Running the scan one more time. Just to make sure.” Jazal’s voice, too, sounded shaky and higher than normal. “They’re… gone. We’re still here.”

A transmission alert pinged. “Silas? Nol al?” Khaleen’s voice was keen with fear and confusion. 

“I’m here, Leena. We did it.”

“Where did those extra ships come from?”

“There’s…” He swallowed, tried to stop shaking. “There’s just the Harrow and one derelict we got running. The rest was a trick.” The decoys were already beginning to fall back into the atmosphere. “Um, we’re kind of in rough shape. Can we hitch a ride?” 

“Yeah. Couple up and we’ll get going.”

“The trireme – three of the guys are still on it.”

“Algrim says we got enough power to tow them. Now link up, and for the love of God, let’s get out of here.”

Jazal took the helm for the docking maneuver, and Silas stumbled to the hold, looking for a drink of water. As he lifted the jug, a shape in the dark glass caught his eye: the face of a young man, crowned with the braids of royalty, drawn-back hair highlighting a face that had grown sterner and more angular since he’d last bothered to look. Silas touched his face, felt the double braid that ended in a stubby knot were it was too short to bind any further. When had he last looked in a mirror? He set the jug down, a hundred thoughts whirling in his head. Vörthänään. The trireme. She sent you here to pass your trials. Jajinlaari in its dusty basin. Djoom. I can’t believe they fell for it.

He picked the jug up and quenched his thirst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Djonajel: Let's go!  
> vörthänään: prince  
> Nol al?: Is that you?


	15. Chapter 15

At long last, the exhausted away team stumbled back onto the Ark. A medical team was waiting for them.

“But… the Vörth said one of you was hurt…” Kittas’s voice trailed off. The surgeon gaped at the sick man, still unconscious and supported between Blakavar and Goheen.

“It’s Djoom,” Blakavar told him. Kittas motioned frantically to his team, who spirited the man away. Violet remained behind; as soon as Blakavar was free, she darted forward and hugged him. When she let go, she turned to her brother.

“Leena showed me the recording. Was that really you?”

“Huh? Yeah.” Leena. He dreaded facing his cousin. Violet tipped her head.

“You’re braiding your hair now.”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s probably not permanent. I’ll probably take it out or do it like the rest of the guys –”

Blakavar shook his head. “You passed your trials. You have as much right to those braids as anyone else has to theirs. Not even the Vörth may take them away.”

The Vörth – Khaleen. Jazal went with him as he set out to debrief. Up the lift. (“You don’t have to come. I’m the one who’s gonna take the fall for this.”) Through corridors where passing soldiers looked at them with awe. (“I was supposed to look after you. If there’s blame, it should fall on me.”) Khaleen’s quarters were near the bridge; she and Algrim were waiting for them when they arrived.

“Are you alright?” She stepped toward him, looking him over. Worry lined her face. 

“I’m ok. We’re all ok, I mean – everybody we left with.”

Khaleen nodded, took a moment to collect herself. “You want to tell me what that was out there?”

Silas did so, with Jazal adding his side every now and again. Algrim leaned forward, interested, when he mentioned the incident at Jajinlaari and the visions that had led him to Djoom. Khaleen listened with her arms folded, her chin in her hand.

“I just wanted to say,” he finished. “I know I screwed up. And I know it doesn’t change that, but I was trying to do the right thing. I wanted to make sure we had what we needed. And we did manage to get back a bunch of our people. That’s… It just spiraled out of control.”

His cousin sighed. She looked more tired than angry. “I gave you one job,” she said at last. Someone came to the door; Algrim stepped out to speak with them. “You were supposed to go to Harudheen to pick up supplies. That was it.”

“Before you say any more, Khaleen, you might want to look at this.” Algrim reentered. He handed her a tablet. “Hodhshi’s still doing the inventory, but that’s the preliminary report.”

She skimmed the contents, then her eyes grew wide. “That’s –”

“That’s enough to run this Ark for decades, even another century if we stretch it. More than enough time to work out our next step.” He looked from Silas to Jazal and nodded appreciatively. Khaleen stared from her cousin to the tablet and back, stunned.

“For the record, I’m still mad at you. Holy shit, where did you find this stuff?”

“The Tivan Group. Right before they put a bounty on our heads.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know whether to hug you or kick your ass.”

Khaleen and Algrim were still pouring over the list of new materials when Silas and Jazal left. Silas stumbled to his quarters; it was the first time in days he had washed up properly. He thought about getting a hot meal, but gave up on that plan and collapsed on his bunk without bothering about his braids. He would have to get Jazal to teach him how to bind them himself, but that could wait.

For now, it was time to sleep.


	16. Epilogue

It was warm here, and the cold, glaring light had gone. His limbs no longer hurt, save for the dull ache of finally, finally stretching his legs.

This is a dream. I will awake, and this will all be a dream.

But it was a good dream while it lasted.

Black bulkheads arched over him; somewhere nearby, a red light flickered on and was muted. He heard footsteps and imagined a face peering down at him. It looked like Kittas.

“Djoom,” dream-Kittas said. “Can you hear me? How do you feel?”

“Yes,” he murmured. “I’m well. Are you well?”

Dream-Kittas cocked his head. He didn’t dwell on the expression.

If I think too hard, I’ll wake and the dream will end.

He didn’t dwell, either, on the despair he felt at the thought of waking.

“You have a visitor, Djoom.”

He wondered who he would see. Maybe it would be his wife this time.

Dream-Kittas was still there. Djoom turned his head and saw a figure silhouetted in a doorway. Tall, narrow, with long limbs and a pale face. He saw a double braid and a cloak: someone important.

“Hello, Djoom.” A woman’s voice. “Do you know where you are?” An unfamiliar accent tugged at her vowels.

“I’m on the Ark.” He was often on the Ark in his dreams. Normally they were the confused and frantic ones, but he wasn’t complaining that this one was peaceful.

“Do you know who I am?” The woman stepped closer. He was missing something; he had never seen her before. Why was she in his dream? Then it dawned on him.

“I’m dying.” A wave of relief swept over him. “You’ve come to take me away.” He had heard the battlefield stories: mortally wounded soldiers, babbling about beautiful, powerful messengers, come to bear them away from pain and horror. He relaxed; it was all over, then. 

The woman frowned. “No, Djoom. You’re not going anywhere.”

Had he been discourteous?

Pity filled the woman’s eyes, kindness. She reached out; he felt her hand on his arm.

He felt her hand.

Awareness beat at the sides of his brain, driving back the fog. He heard a gasp and realized it was his own. 

“Who are you?”

“I am Khaleen, of Kitharn’s house.”

Kitharn – the father of Malekith. “Is Malekith here?”

“No. The war is over. You were captured, but you’ve been rescued. Kittas says you’re healing well. You should be able to get up in a day or two.”

He tried to rise, but she pushed him gently back.

“Not yet. A lot’s changed since you’ve been gone. I suspect you’ll have a lot of questions; we’ll answer them as well as we can. Right now you need to rest. Kittas has something to help you sleep if you need it.” He lay back, and she moved to go. As she turned, he saw the five-stranded braid on the side: the mark of a ruler.

“Khaleen – Vörth.” He had known everyone on this Ark, everyone who was left. Why didn’t he recognize her? “I – I do not know you.”

She smiled. “I am one of the remnant, just like you. The rest will be explained to you in time.”

Hands to his other side – Kittas was still there.

“How many?” he asked the surgeon. “How many of us are left?”

“Very few,” he said. “Far more than we expected.” He lay a hand on Djoom’s brow, and he felt sleep overtaking him. “Rest now. Our people have hope. We have a future.”

\-------

As Khaleen departed the infirmary her path led her past the stasis chambers where her crew prepared the cryo-sleepers for transfer. The Collector had told the truth: all were female, and all but one were civilians. More than that could only be determined after they woke up, if they survived the process. No one knew how long they’d been in that state.

Kid made a good call. Kinda stupid under the circumstances, but a good call. Then: he’s not a kid anymore. She paused, watching the techs work. I wonder what was going on the last time they were awake. God, what kind of world are they waking up to? There were a hundred men left onboard the Ark; if all the sleepers lived, there would be seven women, including herself. How am I going to give them a home anyone would want to live in? She stared after them, lost in thought, before turning slowly away and returning to her duties.


End file.
